In this paper, we explore how multiteam systems (MTSs), that is, networks of multiple interdependent teams working together toward a common goal, organize for resilience. While scholars have examined factors contributing to resilience to adversity in more stable single teams, we know little about how resilience emerges in more complex teamwork environments. Through a qualitative study of four MTSs, each composed of a relatively stable core team and dynamically changing satellite teams, we show that MTS resilience is highly contingent on the MTS’s ability to dynamically reconfigure its structure to facilitate different types of resilience processes. Our study contributes to the literature in four ways. First, we advance current conceptualizations of team resilience by demonstrating how MTSs manage adversity through highly structured processes. Second and third, our findings contribute to existing research on MTS and dynamic teams, respectively, by highlighting how boundaries within and between teams were fluidly shifted in response to evolving adversity. Finally, we contribute to an advanced understanding of teamwork in project-based organizations by applying an MTS lens to emphasize the linkages between component teams in complex project work settings and investigate their changes in response to adversity.
